Roadkill
by xXSaberXx
Summary: A genetically spliced human-dog Courier from Vault 63 tries her best not to die. M for swearin' and sexin' and drinkin'.
1. Chapter 1

Boone had seen a lot of shit before.

Standing up in the lonesome maw of Little Dinky night in and night out made him feel a lot like a piece of prospector stuck between the incisors of a deathclaw. If deathclaws were fifty one feet tall and made of polymorph plastic.

He shakes himself out a little to get rid of the mental image.

Being out at night was all right with Boone. The Mojave was made of hellfire in the day and hellice in the night. Never lukewarm. Never gave you the chance to lull into a sense of complacency with a comfortable temperature. Novac wasn't comfortable either – Legions in the east and NCR pressures in the west kept it on its toes. The Powder Gangers were the icing on the cake, but they were icing Boone could take the scalps off very easy. Drinking beer on top of a rock was their idea of stealth.

Boone wasn't complaining, though. A night without blood wasn't really a night at all. A night without blood gave him insomnia in the day, and he'd lay awake in his bed staring at the ceiling and sweltering alone.

Sometimes not alone. A certain Novac settler had a taste for his company. She was pretty – red hair, pale eyes. The company was a way to dull the voices. The shouts of the Legionnaires bidding and then the single, raucous gunshot.

Boone glares at the white-gold crescent moon in the sky.

The movement pulls him from his scabbing memories.

He shoulders his rifle and crouches when he spots it in the distance. Through the green-lens scope he thinks it's definitely a coyote – ears bobbing, tail twitching. It's so far out that it's hard to tell if it's a cub or mother, but it seems too big to be both. An alpha male? No, too pale. He'd heard of albino coyotes, but never saw one of his own. Before he pulls the trigger he briefly wonders if the pelt will make a decent blanket.

A miss. He cusses and repositions. This animal moved fast, and as he aims again he realizes that the creature is running from something else. The black-blue sands of the Mojave at night are kicked up as it runs, the predator hot on its heels. The coyote bobs and weaves around rock outcroppings to evade it, coming ever closer toward the broken fences of Novac.

The flutter of wings gives the pursuer away. Cazadore. One swift bullet to the right wing – a miracle shot in anyone's hands besides his – and the bug is flat on the ground, twitching. The coyote takes the opportunity and turns back to face the bug.

The coyote takes out a shotgun.

Boone blinks once, twice, and cleans the lens of his scope before peering back into it just in time to see the 'coyote' shoot the cazadore cleanly in the head. Green, toxic blood splashes up and stains the sand.

The beast straightens, standing on two legs. It carves open the cazadore carefully and takes out the rotund poison gland, stowing it away in the pack on its hip. _On its hip._

Boone hasn't drank a drop of booze since Carla disappeared a month ago, but he starts to doubt himself when the creature moves closer to Novac, illuminated in the moonlight. He zooms in with the scope as close as it can go.

Pale skin, too pale. The sickly pale of never seeing the sun. A dirty white wifebeater shirt and baggy cargo pants with combat boots. A true wastelander's outfit. Two legs, two arms, a head. He travels over the body – breasts, waist, hips. Dark brown hair in a ponytail that is quickly covered by a headscarf. He spots them again – the two ears perched on her head like a dog's – just before they're hidden under the folds of the scarf.

Boone watches her as she walks into Novac, glances up at Dinky, and moves to get a room at the motel. When she turns her back, the hole cut into her pants is obvious, and the long, bushy tail that sprouts even more so.

Yeah, Boone thinks to himself. Too much to drink. Too much misery. Not enough goddamn sleep.

* * *

><p>Her eyes are <em>gold<em>.

He asks Ranger Andy about it as the man settles in to a plate of Brahmin. Boone didn't prefer company, but Andy kept him the loop about NCR happenings. Visiting the lonely ex-Ranger for the latest radio news sometimes turned into Andy giving him meals.

Boone didn't understand the people of Novac and their need to pity him. It gave them something to do besides worry, he supposed. Jennie Mae gave him the occasional mole-rate meat pie. Cliff gave him a ridiculous discount. Even the merchants who passed through gave him free repairs or ammo.

It was also probably because he kept them safe while they slept.

Andy nods offhandedly and pans a flank of seasoned brahimin onto Boone's plate. Andy's dinner, Boone's breakfast.

"She's a strange one alright."

"Did you talk to her?"

Andy nods and straightens his bum leg into a comfortable position as he sits.

"Came in to chat a bit. Caught me off guard, with the creepy yellow eyes and all. Slit pupils. Looked like a goddamn cat. She apologized; told me she usually wears sunglasses."

"Why is she here?"

"Didn't say. Said she was just passing through. Talked a lot to that creepy cowboy robot out front, though."

"Is she Legion?" Boone stabs the steak.

"Don't think so." Andy shrugs, his combat armor squeaking. "Too young to have an agenda, you know? Had a shotgun and a pack of supplies, but not much else."

"You didn't see the...thing on her back?"

"The what?"

"The...tail."

Andy freezes, and the two men stare at each other for a moment.

"Boone, you sleepin' all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." The sniper snaps. "Forget I said anything."

"Look, if you 'wanna assess the threat', so to speak, chat up the robot. He seemed to know a whole helluva lot about her."

The door to the motel room bursts open at that moment. In a whirl of twilight air and stray sand, a figure rushes over to Andy at the table.

"Andy! You...Y-You," The girl looks breathlessly down at a magazine in her hands, as if referencing it. "You can't let the injury get to your...um...'head'. Your 'f-fighting spirit' is not injured at all!"

In the dead silent next few seconds, the door behind her flaps against a wall with a dull thunk sound. The peach and lavender streaked sky outside highlights her clothes – white wifebeater and large pack on her back. Boone stands up immediately and leaves.

Andy calls after him. "See ya!"

The girl looks at Andy and her face crumples.

"Did I...I just found this, and it helped me to...to know what to say to encourage you. Did it...offend him?"

She looks at the plates on the table and flinches.

"I interrupted feeding time! I'm sorry Andy."

"S'all right, kid. Thanks for the encouragement. Feels good to know I'm not as useless as I think I am." The ranger chuckles and bites into his last piece of steak before wiping his hands on his pants and standing. "Why don't I teach you a fighting move, huh? Do you do much fighting with your fists?"

"My father did." She nods, head scarf shifting. "I was trained to handle the explosives, mostly, but father said we were perfect for fighting without weapons all the same."

Andy furrows his eyebrows, smiling nonetheless. "Right, well, if that's a yes, come over here where there's room. I'll teach ya a throw."

* * *

><p>The cooling air of dusk floods Boone's lungs as he strides away from the motel room. It wasn't that the girl was particularly scary, but her sudden appearance had thrown him off guard, and if there was one thing Boone hated, it was being caught off guard. He did what he always did when surprised – retreat and watch from afar. He pauses on the steps of Dinky, watching the open doorway of Andy's room. They're talking, and sparring? No, Andy was teaching her something.<p>

The way she moves is lithe, limber, exactly like he'd seen...whatever that thing was run last night. Her natural fighting stance is very low – unnaturally low, like she tottered on the brink of falling on to all fours, like a coyo-

He stops himself.

He'd seen a lot of shit, but it just wasn't possible.

* * *

><p>"Vault 63, pardner!"<p>

"What."

"You don't know what a Vault is? Geez, you musta been livin' under a rock!"

"No, I know what a goddamn Vault is." Boone seethes.

"You do? That's good for you!" The cowboy face flickers as the robot chirps. Boone hates robots.

"You know pardner, my coding doesn't say I can't say anythin' bout Courier 6, but it does say to be careful who I tell it to. My recordin' says you're the one who keeps this rootin' tootin' place safe from critters and what not, so you must be a good guy. I'll tell ya a bit if ya really want to know."

"I don't need to know her damn history," Boone growls. "I just asked you if she was with the Le-"

"Mojave Express Courier #6, Full Name: Replicated Mammal dash Four Two Seven. Age: 19. Date of Birth: May 23rd, 2263. Origin of Birth: Vault 63. Specialties; Explosives, computer hacking, stealth."

He got her history anyway.

He barely hears her before she taps him on the shoulder. He startles – something he isn't proud of – and turns to face her with a paralyzed sort of slowness.

"We have not been properly introduced as of yet." She smiles. He notes dully that she has sunglasses on that hide her disturbing eyes. "My name is RM-427."

"Boone." He tries not to stare at the head scarf and the telltale peaks he looks for underneath it.

And for some reason, he finds himself talking. Asking for help.

He doesn't know if she's Legion, or if she's NCR or some other strange tribal group. He really doesn't give a shit. She's the perfect agent for what he's been looking for – an independent, someone who has no ties or connections to the place at all. A fair adjudicator. Though her presence makes him uncomfortable and wary all at the same time, he offers compensation. Caps. Behind her thick shades, he can see the golden amber color dull when he mentions his wife.

"Do I...the beret, is that the only way I can signal you?"

He nods. She brings Jennie Mae out front.

He watches RM through the scope. Revenge clouds his mind – hot and thick. Jennie Mae has to explode in blood for him to ever be satisfied. If it was that conniving old woman, if this was really the one who put Carla up for sale –

Could he really trust the courier's word?

Boone watches. She takes the beret out of her pack, and for a second he wonders if she'll take the head scarf off to put the hat on and show him, once and for all, that what he saw on her head that night was a lie.

She puts the red cap on over the scarf.

A second of disappointment, but the revenge floods in and fills him. He focuses on Jennie Mae's pale eyes as RM makes small conversation with her.

Bone.

Blood.

It splatters on the courier's pale face.

The bill of sale is proof. She hands the hat back, wiping the flecked blood off her cheekbone.

"This is h-highly unconventional." She starts. "I do not know if you wish to travel together, but I am finding myself in need of a reliable sniper such as yourself. I do very little damage from afar. When you saved me from that cazadore –"

"I'll come with you."

Her sunglasses nearly slip off her nose with surprise. "Really?"

"You're going after someone, right? The robot told me."

Her nod is small.

"Then we're both out for revenge."

"I travel only at nighttime."

"That's fine."

"I'm a very light sleeper."

"So am I."

"The path to my revenge may take many detours."

"It always does."


	2. Chapter 2

Boone learns quickly that she's a terrible shot.

Using the shotgun makes up for it, because she usually rushes right in without thinking and blasts things up close. He's lucky if he can squeeze off one or two shots before she's in the face of a strung-out Viper, getting hit with rippers and switchblades and god knows what else.

And it's only their third night.

He watches her over the campfire as she shovels scrambled Gecko egg sprinkled with cubes of meaty Cram into her mouth. The way she wolfs it all down in a split second is almost comforting – it was what he and his squad mates ate like back in training. Ravenously.

She sighs and leans against the rusted truck's tire with a slightly swollen belly. The popping of a Sunset Sarsaparilla is all that interrupts the silence between them as he takes small bites of his own eggs and Cram. She downs the soda and watches him right back.

"Forgive me if I'm prying, but do you ever take that beret off?"

"No."

The tin trailer they've found for the night is small and cramped, but hidden away in a tall outcrop of rocks. They take shifts – Boone for the first four hours, her for the next. They split the last four hours between them and get in a solid six hours a night – probably the best sleep they could hope for on the road. Viper gangs were plentiful in this part of the Mojave, and Boone was fairly certain they could smell the sheer amount of Jet RM was carrying.

The girl kept a plethora of strange things in her bag, but it mostly boiled down to the basics – Cram, Pork and Beans, various Mojave herbs, purified water, a few sticks of dynamite, shotgun, ammo for her shotgun. He caught sight of odds and ends – star bottle caps, tanned gecko hide she'd no doubt sell later, and magazines about speaking eloquently, mostly.

"When I first left the Vault, I quickly became aware that my usual method of speech was not commonplace in the Mojave. I've decided to master the difficult art of speaking the Mojave dialect in order to better understand its culture and people." RM smiled when she caught him staring at the books.

"Yeah, you talk weird." Boone agrees.

"In the Vault we did not often talk. Speech was unneeded, but when we did use it, it was of the formal type learned from holotapes in the school room."

"How was speech _unneeded_?" He asks, morbidly curious and on the verge of being outraged. He stops cleaning the carbine of his rifle when she stands up. For a second he thinks he's made her mad, not that he'd care, but then she kneels at his side, fingers barely grazing his forearm as she leans in.

His first instinct is to back off. To get distance between them and watch from afar. He forgets. It might have been the heat of the peaking dawn, or the fact he just had his first good meal in a while. Clear, logical, ruthless Boone forgets and sits stock still as her face hovers inches above the crook of his shoulder. She moves up, taking in a long draft of air through her nose along the prominent vein of his neck.

"Male. Approximately twenty-seven cycles old." Her voice is quiet, as though she's murmuring to herself. "Testosterone levels quite above average. Estrogen production is slightly above average. Dopamine levels are at a critically dangerous low. Muscle mass and composition is excellent. His last four meals were pork and beans, potato chips, more pork and beans, and before that, well-seasoned Brahmin steak."

She straightens away from him and her voice grows even softer.

"Has mated with four women. Third woman was long term. Very...long term."

The crickets fill the silence.

He doesn't know whether he should keep cleaning the gun and pretend everything is alright, or retire into the trailer and pretend everything is not alright. She could still smell Carla on him.

Even when Carla was long gone.

"I-I...I'm sorry." RM starts. At night she shed the sunglasses. The vertical pupils were enough to have him looking away from her. "Enhanced smell. That's how those in my Vault communicated. There are hundred other things, indescribable things, that we can tell from smell. We rarely ever spoke."

"That's fucked up." He barks.

Her flinch is obvious. "I'm sorry, Boone. I shouldn't have –"

"I'll take first watch."

His words are cold. The Mojave night could never compare with the ice crystals in his voice.

* * *

><p>Cass hiccups wildly and swivels in her seat.<p>

"So lemme get this straight, you and that First Recon guy are heading to Nipton?"

"For supplies." RM smiles. The bartender of the Outpost – Lacey – throws her wary looks. It was the shades she insisted on wearing even inside that put most people off. The redhead Brahmin driver Cass was apparently too drunk to notice, or care.

"Well fuck me sideways!" Cass bangs her whiskey bottle on the counter. "That's quite a walk, kid. You sure your skinny legs can get you that far? 'Ey Lacey! LACEY! D'ya think this kid can make it there on her own?"

"Sure." Lacey rolls her eyes. "I think it's almost time for you to be done, Cass."

"Done! Me and my fucking new best friend here –" The redhead pulls RM in for a one-armed neck hug, "-don't know the goddamn meaning of the word."

By the time Cass realizes she's been following them to Nipton, she's halfway through the hangover and too sick to turn back.

"Oooh, my fucking head."

"Ah!" RM claps her hands together. "I have heard the term 'head' being used in conjunction with the word 'fucking' quite often! Is it true that it is a form of sexual expression involving the mouth?"

Boone nearly fumbles with his rifle at her innocent tone as he takes it out to shoot a far-off giant ant. Cass slaps him on the back, hard, and this only makes him fumble harder.

"Get your hands off me." He snaps.

"Whoa there, Firsty!" Cass goes back to nursing her headache, palms pressed to her forehead, "Just trying to bond with you over a good back-slap or two. Do all Firsties have a mesquite stick up their butts like you do?"

Boone's bullet crunches satisfyingly between the ant's antennae. RM marvels at the shot and gives him a thumbs up just before she lobs two sticks of dynamite into the remaining horde of ants, effectively blowing them to pieces and ruining his handiwork all in a split second of spraying bug juice.

"A 'thumbs up' is an indicator of enthusiasm that communicates the emotion of satisfied accomplishment between Mojave inhabitants." She recites the knowledge proudly.

"You're a creepy little fuck, aren't you?" Cass laughs, far too loud for the splitting headache she must have. Her arms reach down for a golden nugget of hardened amber the bugs sometimes left behind. "This nectar could fetch a pretty price."

"Please do keep it." RM nods. "Ah, if you want, you can have these too."

She reaches into her bag and takes out an array of expensive guns neither of them ever used – submachine guns, magnums, and plasma weapons. Cass's eyes widen.

"Jesus on a fucking _stick_."

"Ah! Is it a common pastime for Mojave residents to use sticks in copulation as well?"

Cass opens her mouth to answer, a sly smile on her face, when Boone snaps.

"Enough. If we want to avoid the day, we'll have to make camp soon. Are you coming with, or staying?" He shoots the question to Cass, who raises a red eyebrow.

"Not all that sure. My caravan's long gone, but I don't have any funds to go nowhere."

"Sell these!" RM holds a laser pistol up with two fingers. "Neither Boone nor I are very skilled at bartering with the local townspeople."

"Wouldn't have nothin' to do with the fact one of you talks like a computer and the other one has all the social grace of an irradiated mole rat." Cass mutters.

* * *

><p>They make quite the dysfunctional circus. Cass doesn't do much, but she enjoys knifing everything in the back and getting too drunk to take her watch. He watches RM smooth the hair away from Cass' eyes while they wait for sunrise and sleep.<p>

"She is much like my little sister."

At this comment, Boone looks up with the slightest hint of curiosity on his face. Which isn't much, but it's enough to get her talking.

"My sister is the most beautiful of any female in the Vault." Rm nods wistfully. "Her hair is the rare color of sun-touched snow, and her eyes are bluer than the skies here. Because of her beauty, the First Male chose her as his own. It is a hard life, to be the First Female, because the pack looks to you to produce a Flawless."

"Wuzzat?" Cass murmurs. RM looks down at her as though surprised she's still awake.

"A child without flaws, of course."

"What flaws?" Boone asks darkly. From what he'd seen, the bizarre race that had been cultivated in Vault 63 had no flaws – excellent sense of smell that gave her high perception, and wounds that healed faster than he'd ever seen after she ate a good meal or two. The creepy eyes were the only flaw he could really pin down. She watches him with those same amber eyes. Over the course of a few days he'd learned to take the chilling vertical pupils in stride, and it had become easier to lock eyes with her as time passed.

Her hands reach up to the head scarf slowly. The fabric unfolds and falls away, and in the early dawn light he can make them out well – two triangular, sleek ears. Dog ears. No, wolf ears, almost like the hounds the Legion raised.

Cass sits up suddenly.

"You gotta be fuckin' kidding me!" Her fingers reach out to the ears, and she laughs. "Holy shit Firsty, you gotta feel these." She pulls a little on them. "They're fucking _real_. All warm and twitchy and shit."

Boone's stomach sinks. So they were real. He hadn't just been imagining them the first night he'd seen her. RM bats Cass's hand away with a tiny smile before she gets on her knees and hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her pants.

Boone feels his breath catch a little, and then stop entirely when she reaches into her back and pulls out the long, sleek tail. It's fluffy and covered in the same dark fur the ears are.

"Hot damn!" Cass rubs her eyes. "I feel like I'm in one of those weird comic books – Grognak? Jesus! What the hell did they do to you people in that Vault?"

The redhead watches as RM twitches the tail before stuffing it back in her pants.

"I think one of the technicians described it to me as genetic splicing, but I do not know what that means. Before I left, the Head Technician told me I would see similar creatures here in the Mojave – Nightstalkers. I believe they are –"

"Half-coyote half rattlesnake, yeah." Cass nods. "But to do that shit with people? And what are you mixed with?"

"A species long extinct – the North American Timber Wolf."

"So they breed you guys...as a pack." Cass narrows her eyes. "And try to get the tail and ears off ya?"

"Soldiers." Boone grunts finally. The two women look over at him, and he clears his throat.

"The vaults were always made for purposes. Think about it – the senses and strengths of a predatory animal in a human's body? Makes for the perfect goddamn soldier."

"That's disgusting." Cass spits.

"It's my home." RM looks at the sandy ground, and Cass nods.

"'Course. But that doesn't mean it ain't disgusting."

* * *

><p>Nipton is a graveyard.<p>

RM stops them miles before they reach it, her nose sniffing the air with insistence.

"Dead bodies." She sighs. "Hundreds. They're burning them."

"Who?" Boone shoulders his rifle. "Who's burning?"

She sniffs, deeper this time. "Blood, steel, powder, bitter drinks –"

"Legion." Cass hisses. "They use that bitter medicine shit instead of stimpacks. Can smell it a mile away, even if you ain't half-dog."

They walk cautiously. Nipton edges ever closer, and a man in a blue jacket runs out with a smile on his face.

"I won! I fucking won the lottery!"

"What lottery?" Cass snaps. "What about the people inside? What happened here/"

"Who cares? I won, bitch! I'm free!" The man punches the air and runs past them. "Later!"

"Pathetic." Boone spits. "As much as I hate it, this could be an ambush. He turns to face RM, and he can see the crosses and the suffering men and the fire reflected in her yellow irises.

"What do you suggest?" She asks, eyes still riveted to the carnage as though it was a horrific nightmare.

"I'll perch on one of the roofs and give you suppressing fire in case you get ambushed." He points to the General Store. "You two go in on foot and look for survivors. I don't want you getting jumped from behind."

"Sounds good." Cass nods.

He watches them from the scope of his rifle. When the Legionnaires file out from the town hall, his finger tightens on the trigger. All he can see is Carla's face, her screams as they took her. He wants to shoot them all in the head, but there are too many. If he did, they'd overwhelm the two women in an instant. The white-hot rage in him simmers as all he can do is watch, and hope, and pray that they don't get taken.

He should've gone with them.

Not that he cares about them. He was incapable of seeing Carla's fate play out all over again.

The tall, slender man that comes out has pale, marble skin much like RM does, but with a shiftier olive hue to it. He wears a hood made from stuffed coyote and dark shades. Through the costume, Boone can see the way he locks on to RM's form and stalks over to her like a deathclaw did to a bighorner – slow, curious steps. Sizing it up before the kill.

RM doesn't have her hood on for once, nor is her tail tucked into her pants. The darkness of the night doesn't conceal either, and the man walks in a leisurely circle around in observance.

Words are exchanged, brief and fraught with RM's signature stutter whenever she met someone new. Cass holds her arm in an iron grip. The Legionnaires catcall the redhead even as they walk away. It takes all Boone's willpower to stop from taking a cheap potshot at one of them.

Boone learns quickly that this is just the beginning.


	3. Chapter 3

Boone knows that the Mojave is an unforgiving bitch that likes to teach people lessons.

Though Cass was from out west, she'd traversed the sandy pits enough to learn the lessons she needed to. The Mojave had taught Boone at Bitter Springs.

RM-427 had yet to really learn it. The big It. The thing people knew when they lived in the Mojave. Nipton had shaken her core, taught her a little. Coming from the vault and fighting mutated creatures between run-down towns with old skeletons was nothing compared to carnage. To real, human blood painting the cracked roads. The buildings, made of molding wood, were ingrained with blood so much so that when the fires caught to them, the smoke was a little sweet and metallic.

The moon is high, waxing to a full, glorious rusted medallion of copper. Travelling at night was always a top priority, and RM simply stated it was because she did not, for all her attributes, fare well in very hot weather.

"Why'd you come out here then? They kick you out of that cozy Vault? I bet you did something baaad." Cass sniggers and pops a pinyon nut in her mouth.

"No. If we do something bad, we get put in the cage." RM blinks, eyes wide.

"They cage you? Holy fuck, that's like being a Legion slave."

"Oh, it's not so bad. It is dark, and they have speakers that emit a high pitch whistle that hurts on the hour. But it is very peaceful, otherwise. When mating season began, I'd purposely do something a little silly so that I could be locked up inside, away from the madness."

"Matin' season?" Cass spits a rotten nut out. "Do I even wanna know?"

RM smiles. "I have come to observe you as the type of woman who enjoys procreation, Cassidy. Surely you would want to know."

"Got me there, kid. Lay it on me."

"Ah, well, on the third week of every two months, the females of the clan go into ah, what would the word be..."

"Heat." Cass offers.

"Oh, yes! _Heat_."

Boone strides ahead of them, intent on not listening to the conversation. He crouches and shoots at a distant bloatfly just to drown out the impending words.

"The females go into heat. If they are eighteen cycles and above, this is when they choose their Lifemate."

"So the girls get to pick." Cass muses. "I like the sound o' that."

"In the case of the First, Second, and Third Male, they get to chose the female instead. Each pair, whether new or old, will retreat into their rooms for the week. A Technician is assigned to each room to oversee that the mating is successful."

"Ew, so like a weird doctor-fetish threesome?"

"Perhaps? I am unfamiliar with so many terms in that sentence, I do not think I quite understand."

"Nevermind. Keep goin'."

"Oh, but there is not much more to say. The rate of birth is very low among us. Mating Season is quite a chaotic tumble for the first few days, and I'd hide in the cage instead."

"You never chose a mate?" Cass shoots her a look. Boone kneels and kills a far off bloatfly half out of spite and desperation to get away from the conversation.

RM's hears flatten against her head. "I...they sent me out shortly before my eighteenth cycle."

"I'm came here to drive Brahmin." Cass pops the last few nuts in her mouth and chews. "Firsty came out here to obviously be a psycho."

Boone glares, but doesn't refute it.

"So why'd you come out here, puppy?"

"The Head Technician sent me here to gather information on how the world had changed. I...I will remain in the Mojave until my twenty third cycle, and then I must report back with my findings."

"I'm guessing the Head Technician is their Overseer." Boone mutters. "And Vault-Tec probably left instructions on how to do everything, including when to send you out."

RM smiles at him. "I do believe that is correct.

Boulder City is high strung. NCR patrolmen traverse the ruins and perch in the tops of buildings missing roofs. Sniper rifles peek out from ever unprotected corner, all aimed toward the same building in the middle of town. Somehow, RM manages to convince the XO to let her through and try to strike a deal with the Khans.

They walk through the rubble and lines of nervous soldiers. Cass snickers.

"They're wound tighter than my momma's old spinning wheel."

Boone stops to correct a dismally positioned sniper hiding in the bust stop. "Chin up. Shoulders back. Keep your eyes above the target, or you'll lose the range."

"Sir yes sir!" The cadet salutes and repositions, terrified.

"You never cut 'em slack, do ya Firsty." Cass rolls her eyes. "Ey, pupster. You gonna tell us what beef you have with the Khans?"

RM picks her way around the rubble. "Jessup was present when Benny shot me through the frontal lobe. He may know where Benny is currently located."

"Whoa, whoa, wait a fucking second!" Cass trots to catch up with her. "Someone shot you?"

"I was prodigiously shot through a central nervous cluster that was non-commital. They left me for dead, but I survived due to the excellent medical skills of a man in the settlement of Goodsprings."

"Why'd he shoot you?"

Cass' question goes unanswered as one of the Khans, dressed in ragged armor and smeared with dirt and sweat, stops them.

"I am here to speak with Jessup." RM clears her throat. The Khans run into the store and out again, and usher them through. In the dark of the ruined store, Jessup's Mohawk is as sharp and angry as his face.

"You! You're supposed to be dead. Benny shot you!"

She arranges a bribe, though she finds it out that small bits of metal could solve such a large problem so easily. Boone isn't too happy about it, but at the same time he is. He's not sure which is worse – the fact that the seeing the Khan armor again makes his stomach churn, or that the members hiss and spit at him as he passes.

"Bitter Springs, huh?" Cass asks over the campfire later that night.

"Yeah." He nods.

"'Splains a lot."

"Like what?" Boone challenges.

"The face like a dead doll's, the stiff posture, the color in your eyes like you've seen the world die and live and die all over again. Leaves a mark, you know?"

He squints and watches her for any type of swaying.

"You're drunk."

"Why thank you, you look cute tonight too."

RM slips back into the campsite, and Boone nearly starts up and shoots her.

"I've told you before, don't sneak up on me like that."

"I apologize." She winces.

"Nah, nah, it's not 'apologize'." Cass scoffs. "Trying using just plain ol' 'sorry'. Makes you less creepy."

RM's face lights. "Yes! Thank you. I will use 'sorry' from now on."

She sets several fat flanks of gecko steak onto the sheet of corrugated iron they're using as a makeshift frying pan. The fire licks the undersides of the metal, and soon the smell of roasting meat wafts about the camp.

"You ain't worried the bigger baddies will come 'round at the smell?" Cass raises an eyebrow. RM ignores her mostly out of excitement for the meat, humming an offkey tune while she turns the steaks over.

"She sets a perimeter of frag mines five feet deep." Boone grunts. "Aside from Deathclaws, there isn't much that could wade through that and still get the jump on us."

"And we have you with your shifty hawk eyes and twitchy gun finger." Cass sniggers. "Yeah, we're safe."

The main thing that worries Boone is that RM has never been taught_ lessons_. It's evident in the way she tries to broker peace between everyone with any method at her disposal – caps, knowledge, information. Her mentality seemed to be that all of humanity was one big pack, and that she had to help them solve their problems whenever she could.

The tail and the ears don't put people off so much anymore, or if they do, it's a good thing. Mr. New Vegas chuckles over the radio about a 'hairy-eared Courier' looking to make her way into New Vegas. Merchants recognize them. People wave. People _wave_.

It's the friendliest he's ever seen the Mojave been.

Maybe it's the impending war, the impending clash of titans. Tensions were so high about the Dam and the Legion that to not ban together was like suicide, but without all the flashy bits of brain.

Maybe it's why, when they reach the sparkling shores of Lake Las Vegas, that RM begins stripping.

Cass hoots and hollers like it's a peep show. Boone sucks in a breath and has the intense urge to throw a blanket over her not out of caring, but out of self-preservation. She seemed to be completely unaware, or uncaring, that an entire group of sexually starving soldiers was right on the other side of the shore in Camp Golf. He sees the telltale twinkle of glass lenses of binoculars flashing their way as the pants come off, the pack drops to the ground, and the shirt is on the grass next to the rest. All Boone can see is creamy legs, and he's staring more because he's intensely curious as to how the tail connects to her –

Cass shoves him with her elbow. Panties fall. A bra falls. "You can close the jaw, bucko. Though I gotta say, for a fucked up experiment, she's sure got some jugs. Jesus, are those D's? Doesn't make any fucking anatomical sense, with the way her waist is all teensy –"

"Will you shut up?" Boone barks, walking away promptly.

The smirk on the redhead's face is slow. "Where ya goin, Firsty?"

"Into camp to take recon. Stay here and make sure she doesn't do anything stupider."

"Yeah, yeah."

"There's a strange contraption at the bottom!" RM shouts, coming up for air. Her dark hair is wet and plastered about her face. "And there are plants! Under the water! It is quite fascinating!"

They camp on the banks. The water is crystal clear, and RM can't seem to take her eyes off it. She couldn't take her eyes off the rows of tents in Camp Golf, either, and nearly half of the uniforms in camp whistled and jeered as they passed until their commanding officer shot a round to get them to be quiet.

Cass is nowhere to be seen, but he suspects it had something to do with Whiskey and the way she declared herself and 'glasses type of gal' upon seeing the nerdy-looking soldier called Pointdexter.

Boone tries to explain it to her.

"You can't just...waltz near a camp full of soldiers and strip."

"Strip? As in, the Vegas Strip? I've heard it is quite beautiful at night." She sighs dreamily.

"No, strip!" He hisses, then rubs his forehead. "It's what we call taking off your clothes and parading around."

"Oh!" She nods, but no sign of embarrassment creeps into her cheeks. "Yes, I did forget that the Mojave culture takes unkindly to nudity."

"It's more than that. Those men...the soldiers over there, they aren't bad, but when you're out on a post for months, the only women you get to see are your squadmates, and the NCR doesn't like inter-office relationships."

Her small mouth forms an 'o' of realization. "I believe I am coming to understand your meaning. You are saying they are quite without a source of stress relief in the area that concerns sexual relations."

"Yes." He sighs, relieved. "So don't go around them without clothes, alright? Don't go around _anyone_ without clothes, for that matter."

"Why?"

"Because –" His rage is nearly palpable now, "Not all men have willpower."

"Why is that important?" She cocks her head to the side.

"For the love of -!" He tries hard to remember to breathe deep, and attempts to think how he would explain it to a child. "Men like women. Women are physically weaker. If they can, they'll use that to their advantage and..._relieve_ themselves."

"Oh! Unwanted mating!" She claps her hands.

"Yeah, that. Whatever."

"It is very kind of you to be concerned."

"No."

"Yes." She corrects him.

"No."

The campfire dies away to cold embers, and she pulls her thin mattress under her and smiles at him. Through the dying ashes her eyes are molten lava.

"Your smell." She murmurs sleepily.

"What."

"You don't smell so sad anymore."


	4. Chapter 4

Boone has never been to Freeside.

Now he understands why.

The remnants of a once-great city swirl all around them. The alleys and roads are pitch black at night, lit only by a few fragmented lampposts that still care to work. Barrel fires flicker in the distance, and crowds of thinly dressed, malnourished, and over-Jetted people gather around the warmth and light. People stagger, trying to find places to sleep. Piles of shit and piss are behind every dumpster. The fissured roads are barely even roads anymore, the fine layer of human refuse - empty bottles, burned paper, rotting clothes - coat the boardwalk.

It's a trash heap in which everything is dying to live.

In the distance, the lurid lights of the Strip act like some kind of beacon, letting in colored light that taunts everyone outside its gates with the thought that maybe through those tin doors, life was better.

Boone watches RM and Cass do some trade at the rundown shop of Mick and Ralph's. Laser guns and pistols pass hands. He thinks briefly that, because he earns a third of the caps from the scavenging they do, he'll buy a ranch and die there in the wilderness where no one can see him.

They are just crows with feet, really.

They pick at bodies long dead - shacks on the way to Vegas that are long forgotten. Sometimes they find good things, like missiles or intact guns. Things that sell. Sometimes they find food. No one complains about food. RM is driven by some strange fire in her soul to discover everything - it had taken him and Cass a week to convince her that every odd-shaped rock in the distance was not deserving of an entire expedition to explore it.

He sometimes wonders why he follows her.

Cass follows her too. Along the way they'd picked up a strange, rotund eyebot that had an license plate stuck to its side. RM had managed to reprogram it back to health during a stop at Primm, and it followed them about like an alien saucer. The constant humming and whirring and beeping sometimes threw Boone's shots off. He hated robots.

Before they camp each night, RM would program it to patrol. They got a few extra hours of sleep this way.

Boone hated the robot less for it.

ED-E whirs and chirps by Boone's head, floating slowly up to the ceiling before coming back down again. A robot's way of twiddling its thumbs, he supposed. There was little else to do as Cass coerced (read; screamed obscenities) at Mick to lower the price of stimpacks. When they leave, RM smiles up at Boone.

"We have achieved a 'great haul'. Perhaps we should find a place to spend the night?"

"The Atomic Wrangler's 'bout the only place you can get a decent bed." Cass offers, kicking away a bottle. The bottle bounces and hits a nearby squatting ghoul, and the redhead winces.

"Sorry bucko!"

Boone wonders mostly why they follow her.

She's a strange genetic anomaly. She stops and stares at everything, be it a dilapidated train or a Glowing One. Takes it all in with her yellow eyes and stores it away somewhere in her mind.

She's computer smart, but not at math or science. It's more along the lines of memorization. Retention. She can read lines of raw code and know what the machine does almost instantly. She can repair a fair bit, too - generators and power modules. Boone supposes this would be a good skill for Vault-cultivated soldiers as well - remembering orders, long strings of numbers, and procedures.

She is not charismatic, nor even very emotional. Nothing she says is connected to what she deeply feels, if she feels at all. It's like she has one mode all the time - inquisitive.

Maybe the curiosity infected them, too. Maybe travelling with her made them see the Mojave in a way they hadn't thought to - as a huge, wondrous playground instead of the deadly bitch they had come to know it as. He notices sunsets more. Plants more. The way the sand ripples around the world and the sky.

People still try to kill them, of course. Animals still attack. The world hasn't grown kinder, just a little more colorful - colors besides red blood, evil black, and virtuous white.

* * *

><p>RM gambles for the first time, squealing when the machine blips at her and spins its three roulette wheels. Her yellow eyes reflect the moving images quickly, and she pulls the lever three times. A dud. Cass laughs beside her and downs another shot of Whiskey. Boone moves the ice around in his scotch glass and takes the room in with his thin eyes - no threats. Not today, at least. Not in a place where people come to fuck and drink and play. The occasional brawl doesn't count. In this place, there are no wars or grudges.<p>

She loses it all gambling, and Cass yells, and Boone yells, and eventually they find work in the sewers clearing out the radscorpions for enough caps to rent a room at the Atomic Wrangler and buy a few bottles of cheap booze.

RM gets drunk for the first time.

She helped a few men with their Jet problem through a combination of bribery and some more of her awkwardly-repeated speech magazines. She's been doing nothing but stuttering all day. The Followers of the Apocalypse (which Boone thinks is an obscenely stupid name, like they were trying real hard when they named themselves, like some guy stood up and said during the naming meeting; Let's do something like the Brotherhood of Steel, aren't they badasses) thanked them.

The men with Jet problems went on to finish a still they'd been working on, and absinthe flows. Green like a sickly emerald, the liquid sloshes in RM's glass and she shakes her head until her ponytail comes out, leaving behind a ragged mess.

"Today, I think, was a very productive day." She chimes. Cass mumbles something in her drunken stupor, rolling over on her bed.

"Fuuckin' loooove dis bed."

"I love this strangely-colored consumable liquid." RM hiccups.

"'Ey, 'ey are you fuucking lissn'in to meee." Cass sits up, bleary eyed and angry. "Yu weird fucks dunna ever lissen."

"I'm listening!" RM sits up at attention, ears perking up to their full height and her tail crooking upwards in interest. She giggles and sways as she moves over to lean on the edge of the bed.

"Dis bed." Cass shouts. "AI FUCKIN' LOVE IT."

"That's great!" RM shouts with her. Cass appears to pass out immediately after, her eyes fluttering under her lids.

"Volume." Boone snaps. RM slaps her hand over her mouth and giggles again.

"I apolog-I mean, _I'm sorry_."

ED-E beeps. He'd taken to shutting off his jets and sitting as a round, observing hunk of metal on the windowsill. Boone leans back in the plush chair, rifle propped up on the wall a few inches away. RM hugs her knees and corks the absinthe bottle.

"I believe I am reaching the point in which the alcohol is starting to affect my motor skills." RM hiccups.

"Sleep." The sniper grunts.

"What? Perhaps the liquid is affecting my senses as well, as I cannot seem to hear you." She gets on all fours and scoots across the room. He considers getting up and making more space between them, but the way her small hand rests on his knee stops him. She gets up and presses her body against the chair, head on level with his neck.

"What did you say?" She looks up at him, slit pupils small, like slivers of an abyss.

"Sleep." He grunts again.

"Oh, that's all? I will sleep. Soon."

He doesn't point out that she needs to take her hand off his leg, or that he can smell her hair. None of them smell particularly good after travelling for so long, but RM's hair has the distinct tang of nevada agave - sweet and plant-like.

Her mouth pulls into a tiny pout.

"T-Today, when we went to the Follower's camp, that man told me he wanted to test some chems on me."

"Which man?"

"Blonde hair, glasses, I said I had an objectively high resistance to injury and chems -"

"Don't do it."

"He said there would be caps as a form of payment."

"We don't need caps. We have enough."

"The chems need to be tested before people utilize them. I can aid in this endeavor."

"You don't need to help everyone."

This is the loudest his voice has ever gotten. It was partly the scotch, partly the close proximity she was in. He didn't like people getting too close. It made him uncomfortable. He flinches away, hand flying up to his neck.

"Shit!"

"What is it?" RM looks startled, peering around to where his hand flew. On the side of his sand-encrusted neck was a deep, darkly bloody welt.

"Radscorpion sting!" She hisses. "How did you not notice it before?"

"Was wearing that fucking armor...too thick."

The room is starting to spin. Boone briefly understands the woozy feelings that he attributed only to the scotch. He sees her rummage through her bag in the corner, muttering a string of something that sounds like 'antidote antidote antidote'. She freezes for a moment, the medicine pockets empty. Her eyes travel over to him again and she collapses by his side.

"You must stay still! I will draw out the poison."

And then her mouth is on his neck, lips pressed to his skin in a suction, tongue sliding over the wound in a preliminary cleaning. He can feel the blood trickle down his neck, can feel the hot swathe of her tongue and the gentle suckling sounds her mouth produces and even though he's poisoned and sick and drunk, his mind jumps to other places, like she's sucking somewhere else on him, and he can feel it rise up and harden, and with every second that passes it tenses more until it's straining against the fabric of his pants painfully. Not her, don't think about the genetic fuckup, don't imagine the unfathomable mutant he's following. A whore on the street, the girl in Novac, anyone but her. Anyone but the roadkill. She's too young, too weird, too stupid, too good at this fucking licking thing -

"There." She pulls away, the heat leaving him. The wound is pink and light now, her mouth smeared with blood and clear remnants of venom.

"Y-You..." He shifts in his seat to cover it in such a way that she won't see. "But it's in you now."

She shakes her head, hair flying. "We are quite immune to poisons."

"That's g-good."

"Are you alright?" She looks his face over. "You look flushed."

"I'm fucking fine." He snaps. "Just sleep."

He feels his stomach sink a little when she smiles and nods and climbs into her bed so willingly. He has to take care of it himself, quiet and slow, like he did back in basic when people were all around him, sleeping. He pumps and moans into the pillow and looks down at the mess like it disgusts him.

Because it normally doesn't, but tonight it does.

* * *

><p>Arcade is blonde, wavy blonde and coiffed perfectly, which Boone thinks stupid and girly. The man doesn't meet his eyes. Arcade is obviously much older than Boone. Maybe not much, but enough. It doesn't take away from the fact every woman in the Followers camp smiles and asks Arcade constantly if they can help in some way.<p>

Everyone except Julie Farkas. She suggests he leave with the travelers. For perspective, but mostly to gather more medical supplies for the Followers.

"I feel like I'm the ringmaster in a circus." Arcade raises a fine eyebrow as they traverse to the King's neon-laced hideout.

"Bald strongman," He points to Boone, then Cass. "Girl who stands on the horse as it runs."

ED-E bleeps, and Arcade nods. "Strange alien artifact that can move."

RM waits for her nickname almost eagerly, tail wagging.

"Uh...bearded lady."

Cass lets out her signature loud laugh, then winces and clutches her hungover forehead.

"Remind me again why we brought him along." Boone grunts.

"I make the stuff that keeps you alive."

"I can find enough stimpacks on my own, shithead."

"More like 'stiffpacks'." Arcade mumbles.

"Alright, enough of the dick whipping." Cass rolls her eyes.

The King has them running errands. Fake bodyguards, mediating between a stupid NCR unit and an even stupider Kings' unit. Somehow they get a fake passport, and the weird robot dog that sat at King's side. RM-427 has amassed a small army that now sits in front of the glittering gate of the North Strip.

Rex barks, ED-E blips. Arcade grumbles and inches away from Boone as Cass slaps him on the back and tells him to buck up or shut up. Boone folds his arms over his chest, ready to be impressed.

RM's smile grows wide.

The gate screeches open slowly.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Whoa, guys. 3000 views. You guys are the tops.

* * *

><p>Boone didn't expect Mr. House to be...a disembodied head on a giant computer screen.<p>

A ghoul, maybe. Maybe some kind of Vault experiment like RM was, one with an unnaturally long life. Maybe even something like a robobrain. But no, didn't expect a screen.

"According to the file, you worked for the Mojave Express for a mere two months." MR. House's permanently crooked eyebrow seems to crook a little higher. "Do you have any idea why I chose you to be courier six?"

"N-No, I do not believe I gave much vehement thought to it, not until...until..."

Her ears droop slightly, and her tail follows suit.

"Until Benny shot you."

"Yes."

Arcade has situated himself in one of the sofas, spread out like the drama queen he is.

"All that's missing is a dangled bunch of grapes and some well-oiled men, and things would be perfect. Well, as perfect as they can get in a creepily abandoned casino run by even creepier first rate robots. With faces."

"Everything here has a face." Cass scoffs. She folds her arms over her breasts and looks down at the Mojave and Vegas all around them – light by the high noon sun. They were all tired, save for ED-E, who had taken to rising up to the higher ceiling with great enthusiasm. Arcade didn't show much tiredness, either, because he hadn't adjusted his schedule to the nocturnal one Cass and Boone were on. Rex merely wags his tail and barks at a shelf.

"You like men." Boone grunts to Arcade.

"I like all kinds of things, one of them being men, yes."

"Yeah, you look like a fruity type." Cass interjects.

"The revelation that's really bugging me –" Arcade sits up. "-is that the woman you're following is some kind of genetic splicing. Those chems I gave her didn't affect her at all, and that stuff is used to kill Brahmin humanely."

"You gave something to her that kills Brahmin?" Boone tenses in his seat. Cass' eyes flit between them, and she puts her hand out.

"Sit down, Firsty."

"Did you hear what he said."

"Heard. Don't really care. Not really that worried. Remember that broke leg of hers that one time? Healed right up after dinner. We know she's a freak. We've seen puppy pull out from worse, you know that."

Rex whines and cocks his head. Cass scowls like she's trying to resist the dog eyes of innocent doom.

"Not you, bone-breath."

If they fall silent, they can hear every word of the conversation on the other side of the hanging cloth.

"I chose you to be courier six, RM, because I knew you had capabilities that would serve the mission well."

"I understand."

"It is most unfortunate that Benny has the chip now. However, I assume you want your revenge as much as I want the chip."

"As the Mojave inhabitants seem to say very often; 'an enemy of my enemy is a friend'." RM finishes for him.

"Indeed. I will not ask into the nature of your death, nor the details of how Benny wronged you. I will not restrict you in granting justice. The method of his death is up to you. There are a few ways to approach him, and I have run each through the simulator several times."

"Is there one with significantly greater probabilities?"

"Yes. Benny is a known womanizer. You are a woman."

"I...but he killed me."

"You two have a history. Perhaps your memory was damaged from the shot?"

"No, n-no. I remember very well."

"Good. I trust you know what to do then. Return to me when you have the chip."

The cowboy robot shows them to the suite. There's a great fuss. Cass whoops upon finding the fridge full of whiskey and Arcade whistles, impressed at the general luxury. Rex barks happily and christens the bed Boone has chosen in the guest room with pee.

"I can set up a lab here, just something small on the counters." Arcade runs his fingers over the marble. "This House guy really knows how to preserve a place, eh?"

"It is technologically impressive." RM nods, marveling at the large oak table with many chairs gathered around it. "Though due to the fact Mr. House is still alive at all and not a ghoul speaks more volumes than the fact the rooms are perfectly preserved."

"Yeah. That's tech the Enclave doesn't even have." Arcade nods. She smiles at him.

"I'm glad you're with us, Mr. Gannon."

"Mister?" He balks. "No no no, seriously, it's just Arcade. Arc, if you're feeling even lazier."

"Yes. It is...how do they say it...'good to have you on cord', Arcade."

"Board." Cass shouts from the other room.

RM, delighted by her new cooking area, takes to experimenting with the herbs and meats in the pantry. The first attempt nearly sets the room on fire, and the cowboy robot has to run in with foam spraying from his hands, but the second try culminates in an edible meal of bighorner stew.

"So, pup," Cass starts around a mouthful of broth. "What's the deal?"

"I'm going after Benny tonight." She nods.

"No, I meant with us."

"Oh! Indeed, I am not quite sure. I...if you wanted to leave, you most certainly could. My journey will be over in a few hours."

"So...you'll kill Benny, and that'll be it? Seems a little anticlimactic, and I haven't even been here for the whole show." Arcade breaks a box of potato crisps into his soup bowl.

"I...once Benny is deceased, I will continue to travel the Mojave and experience as much as I can before my twenty third birthday, in which I will have to return to the Vault."

"That's it then." Boone grunts. "Just experience as much as you can."

"Yes." She nods. "If you...all of you are more than welcome to stay in the suite. It was very kind of Mr. House to give it to me. I assume he will want my services for more than just the delivery of the platinum chip."

"And you're okay with being his lapdog?" Cass snorts.

"I'm not sure. Mr. House is quite bent on protecting the Strip. I do not believe in his cause as whole-heartedly, but if you look around, I would say the Strip is worth protecting."

Arcade nearly dies laughing up chips into his lungs.

"He has a point." Boone talks over Arcade's cough. "The Strip is a diseased fleshpot."

"Do you see any military camps here?" RM asks breezily.

"Well, no."

"No Legion camps, either."

"Of course not." Arcade coughs up a last chip.

"What do you see?"

"A lot of people." Cass starts. "Trying to forget the shitty world around them."

RM smiles into her soup.

"That's what I see, too."

* * *

><p>The bathroom is choked with steam. Cass and RM had decided neither could wait for the other to finish a bath in order to get clean themselves, and conceded to bathing at the same time. The warm water is amazingly soothing, and they soak to wash away the layers of sweat, blood, and irradiated dust. Skin turns from brown to white again. The red of Cass' hair is visible, and the pinks of the tips of their fingers can be seen.<p>

The soap isn't fragrant, but it does the job it was meant to.

"Damn, girl." Cass sniggers as she watches RM rise from the tub. "They build you guys well in that tin can."

"A-Ah." RM wraps a towel around her body. "T-Thank you. You as well are...very beautiful."

"Hey, don't shit me. I know I ain't nothing special. My daddy used to say I was gonna be the flattest girl aside from the sand basins."

RM settles at the vanity and fiddles with the ancient bottles lining the counter. It's the first time Cass decides to ask a serious question.

"Ey, pup?"

"Yes?"

"House said somethin' bout you and Benny having a past?"

RM nods almost wistfully. "Yes. During my time employed as a courier, I ran many packages for Benny. That was prior to when he became part of the Tops staff. He was merely a merchant in Sloan during that time."

"You two...were fuckin'?"

RM's face flushes. "N-No. Well, there were times when...but my...feelings were one-sided. I was not quite two weeks out of the Vault when I met him, and I was very alone, and confused. He was very forward."

"So what happened?"

"He proceeded to the Strip, and made his way up while I continued to run packages. We did not see each other for a year. When we did, he did not seem to recall ever meeting me. He had changed. The Strip made him much more of a business man."

"And that's when he shot you."

"He held me down in the sand and mated with me when I did not desire to, in front of the Khans and his men. Then he shot me."

Cass doesn't know what to say to that. But she knows the feeling.

Most girls in the Mojave did.

* * *

><p>Cass stays behind. Arcade stays behind.<p>

Boone insists to go with her.

It startles Boone when RM smiles at him and assures him she'll be fine. Rex barks and whines when she tells him to stay. Benny wraps a checkered-suited arm around her small waist and smirks at the sniper.

"If she's so eager to get some of this ride, then let her. You just sit tight, alright buddy-boy? Help yourself to the booze, or the reels. I'll return her in one piece."

Boone would stride up and stare him down if the six guards surrounding him didn't all carry magnums. Instead he has to opt to seethe stoically, quietly, as he watches the two of them go into the elevator.

Inside, RM is scared. Hot. Frantic. Benny mutters innuendos that are less than subtle their whole way up. She has to work hard to lead him into his room, shut the door, and make him believe she likes it.

"I knew you couldn't stay away, baby doll." Benny drawls as he sheds the suit, piece by piece. "I knew you were a fucked up little kitten the night on the hill, with your funny ears. And look at that cute tail. Does the tight little hole under that tail remember the Ben-master?"

She can't puke. She can't. Not until it's done. Then she can puke on his body.

RM's people were not, she thought briefly, made for causing suffering. In many ways, they were built to, as Boone put it, 'get the job done quick'. No mess. No screams of agony. Her people did not like to see people suffer. It was why she wanted to help so bad, so much. Even when Benny had wrenched her around like a ragdoll and smashed all the pride held deep in her wolf-heart, she did not want to see him suffer.

He gets as far as her nipple when she holds his head down and slices into the pillow. Clean, silent. There's a gurgle or two, and then sable, delicate silence.

She gathers the chip and bids a curt farewell to Yes-Man, his offer in her mind but not really. The only thing in her head is the color red.

Boones walks with her back to the Lucky 38. House gives her another assignment, and he waits in the lobby and listens to her robotic answers.

"He raped 'er." Cass grunts in the common room, shooting a flawless double ball shot at the pool table.

Arcade leans his chin on his pool stick. Boone freezes in cleaning the counter free of whiskey spills.

"But hey, that's life, right?" The redhead repositions and strikes the eight ball into the cup. Arcade lets out a long breath. Boone clenches his fist. The radio plays music about love.

RM comes out of her room eventually, puffed-eyed but smiling as she shows off the synchronized tail wagging her and Rex have perfected.

And the beat goes on.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: So I got a PM. Which is sweet. It asked me why was I taking a concept like this and applying it to F:NV? I'll answer it like this; I play on my computer. On the computer we get mods. I dled a mod that gave the player wolf ears and a tail. It just turned RM into a character of her own.

I hope yall enjoy. I'll shut up now.

* * *

><p>Boone thinks he's seeing things when they walk out the next morning.<p>

On the steps waits the man they saw in Nipton. The smell of blood and carnage follows him even when he's not dressed up in his coyote helmet and shades. He wears a pinstripe suit and a snappy hat, but nothing about him speaks of a gambler - he is all sharp corners and determination. A soldier. No. A _general_.

Boone's first instinct is to kneel, position, and shoot the Legion man where he stands. RM puts a hand on his shoulder and for some reason it stills him - gives him a grounding point. He swallows the venom rising in his throat, fights it with all his might and he wins this round. The man walks up to RM. Rex growls softly as if sensing the man and the danger that follows him.

The man has soft, dark eyes, and dark hair cropped close. His eyebrows are prominent and pulled into a permanent concerned state. The dark eyes are bottomless, empty. The skin is pale. His voice is colder than steel, than dead blood, than a nuclear winter. Not like a mercenary, or a Viper. Like a soul that had no soul to speak of. No emotions. Nothing real, no burning passions, just lukewarm acceptance, almost like -

"What did you require of me?" RM's voice starts.

"You are to come to Caesar. He wishes an audience with you." The man inclines his head.

"Who are you?"

"You may address me as Vulpes, Profligate."

RM smiles. Vulpes does not. His mouth remains straight, his eyes dead. He fishes a bronze symbol from his pocket and drops it into her open palm.

"This is the Mark of Caesar. All of your past sins against the Legion are forgiven. Make your way to Cottonwood Cove, and transportation to our camp will be accommodated for you."

His choice of words is mechanical, computer-like, almost like-

"Thank you." RM nods. There's a silence in which Vulpes almost looks like he's going to leave, but he steps in instead. Boone's hand twitches toward his side knife. Rex's hackles raise up to the point of making him look twice as big.

Vulpes ignores them, and puts his nose close to RM, and into her hair. He inhales deeply, and lowers his eyes before pulling away abruptly.

"Are you alright?" Boone grunts, turning her small shoulders toward him. She seems paralyzed, but at his touch she jolts to life again.

"Y-Yes. He...he simply startled me."

"He's a freak." Boone growls.

"We sh-should get going. The trade post is a far walk." She starts off at a brisk stride unusual to her, and Rex trots behind. Boone looks up at nothing and follows.

* * *

><p>The pain of losing Carla had consumed him for a while.<p>

It still reverberated in his bones, like an old dent aching. It was still there in the form of the instinct to murder every Legionnaire he saw. The color crimson made him jumpy, fringe and spears made his skin prickle cold. He hadn't forgotten, not for a moment.

But it feels like it. Like he's lost a part of it.

So he tries hard to remember every scream and shot in an attempt to keep her close.

He had tried suicide once before, but Manny had found him before he finished the whiskey and pulled the trigger. So he was alive by luck.

He was forgetting Carla by luck.

Maybe not luck. Maybe the meals and the laughing and the stupid conversations and the drunken nights in the suite and by the campfire made him forget. Salved the wound.

He didn't want to forget.

Boone watches the fire. It's just him and RM again, like it was in the beginning. Rex provides moral support and can launch himself fourteen feet horizontally to rip out a throat of a passing Fiend. The next minute he pees on billboard pillars jovially. Boone isn't sure if the dog follows them in order to destroy every corrupt human in sight or simply mark the biggest territory known to man. RM can tap into his programming to make him patrol for a certain amount of time, giving them more sleep.

"You're shaken up." He grunts.

RM looks up from her can of pork and beans. "Mghsff?"

"That man. Vulpine, or whatever. He shook you up for some reason."

"Hmrrgh." She shovels more beans in her mouth.

"Talk to me."

RM swallows. "Why?"

"You know something about him."

Her spoon droops and hits the bottom of the can with a clink. She looks down at her leather armor. It's ripped in places, and the abdomen armor is completely missing. Her fingers poke at her belly, grabbing a pouf of fat.

"Did you observe this? I am quite out of shape from sitting in the suite and cooking for you and the others."

"Don't change the goddamn subject."

"I've never been out of shape. Always, I've always been rather thin and muscular. It is how we're built. And now I'm..."

She trails off, and for a moment it looks as though her eyes are moist.

"I've n-never been fat before."

Boone rolls his eyes. Rex somehow manages to knit his eyebrows to almost do the same.

"You're not fat."

"I am! Observe!" She stands and pulls all the skin on her stomach forward. "I-I'm fat!"

Boone starts chuckling. Rex wags his tail. RM stamps her foot.

"What do you find humorous about this situation?"

"You sound like a regular girl right now."

The comment makes her sit again. The fire crackles on into the night. Rex gets up and relieves himself for the umpteenth time on a nearby cactus.

"His eyes."

Boone looks up from his Nuka-Cola. RM prods the fire with a mesquite stick.

"His eyes were so dark, but when he leaned in...I could see the pupils. They were like mine. The way he smelled me, that too, is the customary greeting of the pack."

"Are you saying he's one of you?"

"It is impossible." RM shakes her head, ponytail nearly slapping her in the face. "I am the only pack member to leave the Vault in a hundred years."

"So either he's a hundred years old -"

"He's not."

"Or he somehow got out."

The mystery doesn't absorb him like it does RM, but it nags in his mind. He didn't recall seeing any ears, but he had the hat on. There was no tail on Vulpes, but it could've easily been hidden in his pants. Boone is deep in thought, spinning the Nuka cap around his finger, when he feels the beret lift off.

"This is mine now." RM holds the red cap close.

"No."

"Yes." She argues. He stands and reaches for her over the fire. She spins away and his fingers brush her swinging hair.

"Give it back." Boone's voice rises only minutely. RM dances away and scales a rock face easily with her agility. She pulls the hat on her head and salutes.

"My name is Boone. I enjoy shooting things and being what Cass says is a 'sour pussy'."

Boone feels his face heat. "It's _puss_! Sour _puss_!"

"I also like correcting people's language usage!"

"You brat." He spits. "Get down here, now."

She comes down eventually, but only after Boone pulls her leg and brings her toppling, which he feels sorry about only for a second because the second he bends over to ask if she's okay she jumps right back on the rock and does her imitation.

He tries hard not to be amused.

* * *

><p>Veronica is somewhat of an oddity.<p>

"So the funny thing about bunkers is," Veronica starts. "The walls echo, right? So every time some initiates try to get it on in the cargo hold -"

They take fourteen steps and realize RM isn't with them anymore. She's staring at the small child sitting on the mat, teddy bears and books and novelty Nuka Cola items surrounding him. She kneels and he takes his strange headpiece off.

"Who's that?" Boone grunts.

"The Forecaster." Veronica bounces on her heels. "He knows all kinds of stuff."

"Knows stuff."

"Like a...uhm...fortune teller. Except better."

Boone doesn't believe in hokey crap. He doesn't believe it means anything when the Forecaster touches RM's face, nor when the boy points over at Boone and say something just after that has RM flushing a bright red. When she rejoins them, Rex barks and breaks the awkward quiet.

"So I guess he musta forecasted something good." Veronica quips. "Endless caps? Power? Fame? Oh, this is a good one; a giant deathclaw alpha just around this corner here?"

"I am unsure what he predicted." RM shakes her head. Veronica smiles.

"He did his job right, then."

The Brotherhood member snarks and quips and never stops talking about technology. Robot dog this, robot dog that, oh are those dog ears on your head, that's nothing, one time I saw a ghoul with an arm growing from his skull, hey do you guys see that dust cloud it looks like my aunt benina, Boone can you hold this for me, boone can you spot any faster, boone I need the last purified water you got there

She also fondles RM at every chance she can muster, pressing her hands or diving with her face into the girl's chest.

"Oh man, these are way soft."

"Stop that." Boone barks.

"I'm checking her for wounds, dude. Calm yourself."

RM doesn't seem to particular find it odd.

"When I was in the Vault, my duty was to look after the pups. They often found comfort by putting their head on my chest as well."

"Glad I could bring up memories for ya." The Brotherhood member smirks. "Did they ever have doctor's exams in the Vault too?"

"Oh yes. Many exams, all the time. Some were very intensive."

"Intensive down south?"

"Ah, occasionally."

"Why don't we try and recreate that -"

"Back off, Steel."

"Ooh, or what? You gonna shoot me in the head, NCR?"

"The foot. Bleeds more. Isn't fatal. Lets you hang around longer for some more punishment."

"Oooh, the NCR is a sadist." Veronica snickers, then elbows RM. "You better watch yourself, baby. Don't want any rope burns mucking up that pretty skin of yours."

Boone calmly opens his rifle and inserts a new bullet. Veronica rolls her eyes and gets the picture, and for a while it feels like all is quiet again. The moonlight shines down on the road, the wind blows dry and cool, and the stars glint high in the -

"Whoa, the view from back here is much better. No, no, you go on ahead RM. I'm just gonna stay riiiiight behind ya and guard the back."


	7. Chapter 7

Boone knows there's no such thing as the boogeyman.

The air swirling with deep green spores almost changes his mind. The thick walls of the vault echo with some kind of guttural groaning, as though the structure itself knows what it houses. Monsters. Monsters of the mold-covered, gremlin-looking kind.

They pick their way carefully through the halls. In a place like this, Boone is almost useless. Sniper rifles could see down long, straight corridors, but the winding nature of this place makes him obsolete.

He doesn't like being obsolete.

Where he has a hard time defending himself, Veronica seems perfectly comfortable. Her hefty, hydraulic-powered gauntlet and smooth punches say more about her upbringing and training than her words ever could. She was better at hand-to-hand combat than anything else in the world, including keeping quiet.

"I know we gotta be all hush-hush because of the plant people," The Brotherhood member whispers as they move through rooms, "But does someone wanna remind me again why we're here?"

RM adjusts the grenades on her belt, fingering one carefully as her ears perk forward, straining to catch the sound that will let her know where the enemy is Rex is alert in much the same way, and Boone is just a little disgusted (entranced?) by the way they are so similar in posture, movement, and behavior.

"We are rescuing a woman ghoul. A scientist who has information we desire, to be exact."

"Ah! Right! Let's just hope they don't make us marry her."

"Who's they." Boone grunts.

"Nevermind you your pretty head, sniper. Just watch the back while I punch a new way into the dawn."

Veronica straightens from her sneaking position, eyes alight.

"Hey, what I said...that was actually pretty cool of me, huh?"

"No." Boone offers.

"I never named this fist." Veronica looks down at the metal contraption. "I'll call it...Way of the Dawn! That makes me sound official-like, doesn't it?"

"Makes you sound stupid."

"The grownups are talking, NCR."

RM holds up a hand to silence them and narrows her eyes to golden slits. Ahead of them in the dark cavern is a group of moving things. She turns her head to Boone, as if asking. Boone understands, and eyes them through his sniper rifle scope.

"Mantis nests. More plantmen."

RM nods and proceeds to chuck all the grenades she has into the murky depths. Green body parts go flying, wings and bug legs and the crunch they make can be heard even from their place on the rocks. Boone looks in his scope when RM leans back, satisfied. Not a single one is left.

He wonders how she got so good at exploding things. He wonders as they traverse the lower levels and wade through flower patch after deadly flower patch, fending off the mutants. He supposed that, in Vault 63, they taught the spliced people a way to defend themselves. He imagines that, like a regular coyote pack, each member has its place – hunter, caretaker, medic, repairman, explosives expert.

When they reach the gas leak, RM puts her hands on her hips (something she'd picked up from Cass, definitely), and surveys the area. After a moments pause, she sniffs.

"So how're you gonna explode this?" Veronica asks, ever0curious. "You gonna wag your tail at it, see if it explodes from the cuteness?"

Boone's mouth sets flat. Veronica nudges him as they walk behind RM.

"You know, I think the reason we don't get along is because I'm honest with myself and you're not. It's not healthy to keep all those secrets and moody thoughts inside that mostly-empty head of yours, you know?"

He thinks briefly about punching her, but then spots Way of the Da-that stupid metal can opener and thinks better of it. Their one-sided bickering had left them standing in the middle of a room, and they realize RM is nowhere to be seen just as the doors of the room seal shut with a string of hisses.

"What the hell?" Boone strides over to the glass oval that serves as a window into the hall. RM is on the other side, waving and smiling.

"RM, c'mon." Veronica begs at the window. "Let us out, seriously. Ah, what's that in your hand?"

"Time bomb." Boone spits. "She's blowing that gas vein up."

"RM! You didn't have to lock us in here! We'd be safe, really!"

The First Recon's stomach churns with uneasiness. He tries the door panels, any buttons he can find. Veronica sits on a rusted child's school desk and furrows her eyebrows.

"NCR, that gas was in the entire hall. You'd have to run fast to a sealed room after you set off the explosion. And by 'fast' I mean 'it's impossible'."

"Shit!" He swears. Rex looks up at him woefully. A faint beeping comes in just then, and both Veronica and he stride over to the window to watch the gas leak carefully. The timed bomb that sits at the base beeps one last time, and the world outside the window explodes in tongues of white-hot fire that race down every corridor and turn.

Boone grabs Veronica's arm and throws the two of them behind the kitchen counter. The roar of the fire is punctuated by screeching snaps as the sealed metal doors fly off their hinges. The window cracks into millions of spider fractures. As quickly as the explosion came, it dies off, leaving nothing but the smoking remains of superheated metal and an eerie silence.

"RM?" Veronica dashes into the hall just behind Boone. "There!"

She points to a doorway with its door blasted off as well, and just inside, thrown to the ground behind a fallen refrigerator, lies RM. His blood freezes, not because he cares (he's never cared about anyone in his life) but because he knows, deep down, that if she died he could never go back to life without the wandering, the traveling, the discovery.

She stirs and sits up, clutching her head.

"Ah...I seem to have miscalculated. Perhaps if I had not been so tardy in reconfiguring the door seals, I would have –"

"You idiot!" Boone snaps, pulling her roughly to her feet by the arm. "Do you have any idea how risky that was! You nearly got us all killed!"

"What he's trying to say, RM, is that he's glad you're not dead." Veronica rolls her eyes.

"Please let go of me." RM's voice is small, and in her reflecting eyes he can see himself, and the paralyzing fear that his grip causes in her.

He doesn't regret grabbing her, because it was really the only way to demonstrate his anger, but at the same time it has a lasting effect on her. As they tell Keely it's done and help her destroy all evidence of the research, RM avoids his gaze. They camp in the lush garden that is the entrance outside the Vault, the trees hanging with fruit and the bodies of the mantis' they killed earlier providing a tasty meal when grilled in wine.

"So they were like you." Veronica points out around a dessert of Fancy Lad snack cakes. "They were splicing people in that vault...with plants."

"Yes, I believe so." RM agrees quietly. Boone grimaces at his round cake and throws it to Rex, who wolfs it down eagerly.

"Sorry." He starts suddenly. Veronica looks up. RM looks down."For grabbing you."

"I do not require an apology."

"Well I'm giving one, so you might as well take it."

He blames his tone for the reason she tells him to go back to the Lucky 38 when they wake at dusk. He blames the Fiends and the bark scorpions and shoots them all through the head equally. He blames the mind's capacity for memory, blames Cass for telling him, blames Benny for doing it to her in the first place, knows that if Benny was still alive, he'd hunt him down personally, not because he cares, but because it was the way the Mojave worked. An eye for an eye. A heart for a heart.

Scar for a scar.

* * *

><p>Veronica doesn't know what to think, really.<p>

On the one hand, she's now traveling alone with the prettiest (and weirdest) girl she's ever met in her life. On the other hand, Rex is here, and it's not like Veronica would make any moves while RM is moping at the absence of the NCR sniper, anyway.

Not that Veronica knows what it's like to mope. Nope. Not her. Not at _all._ It's not like being commanded to stay away from the one girl you loved was cause for getting depressed.

Nope. Not at _all._

So Veronica punches and punches, and takes care not to step on any landmines RM plants, and the two work like a charm. A team. If it wasn't so obvious RM had a thing for baldy, Veronica would've asked her out. Just for fun. Just to see the blush. Nothing serious, of course.

Veronica hadn't been serious for a long time.

The snow is almost unbearable. She decides she likes it, but only during the day. Traveling at night as they did left little time for playing in the snow when it was light out. It was always just cold. Cold, cold. Freezing. In a way, Veronica gets her wish. They no longer keep separate sleeping places. It makes more sense, in the arena of survival, to share body heat. They sleep in the same vicinity, Rex patrolling until it's RM's turn.

Veronica watches the spliced girl sleep. Her head is on Veronica's shoulder, the blanket thin but covering them completely. Veronica can only sigh and think about how unfair it all is. Love, yeah, but life, too. Love was hard to have in the Mojave. Death and starvation wasn't exactly the right environment to breed the stuff, but like the stubborn weed it was, it grew between people anyway.

Veronica thinks that's a miracle.

The dog-girl's lips move in her sleep ever so slightly. A name. Veronica grins and throws her arm over her waist before settling in to sleep again.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Guys. You really are the best reviewers ever.

* * *

><p>Veronica realizes that Jacobstown is a town of freaks.<p>

It's not just the twitchy, tragically demented nightkin, nor the overbearing, pea-green supermutants (pea-green, she didn't know what that meant, because pee was yellow, not green, but she read it in an old book somewhere once) that are freaks. The Brahmin stand just a little too crooked, the plants look strange and smell spicy, and the ghouls are named Calamity.

It's probably why RM fits in so well.

Veronica fits in well, too. Growing up as a teen, her close-minded Brotherhood fellows had called her a freak many, many times. Something about this snowy village frees any inhibitions people might have had, any pretenses. You dropped the 'normal' act, not that she had one to begin with, but if she _did_, she would've _dropped it_.

"I think I am enjoying this weather." RM peers into the night sky as the fat white flakes rain down. Rex is a few feet away, running circles around Marcus.

"I enjoy this weather as well." The mutant grunts.

"You called it...slow?"

"Snow."

"Yes! In my vault, we had one such book about snow. Her last name was White. She had seven small creatures, who now I know must have been stunted mole rats, taking care of her. She cooked and cleaned and one day she ate a radioactive fruit of some sort and died. The mole rats put her in what appeared to be a glass gun case filled with flowers and cried."

"That sounds very far-fetched."

"Oh, it was. The best part, of course, was when she came back to life as a ghoul."

"How did this occur?"

"Radioactive absorption of the highest level, as usual. She was also kissed by a man."

"Ah."

Veronica likes the snow more than she knows how to deal with. She whirls and falls in a drift and makes angels until she's soggy. RM attempts to make an angel as well, and when the two step back to admire their handiwork, the courier seems to go pale.

"Whoa, you okay there?" Veronica steadies her arm with her hand. RM nods, and her face goes from deathly pale to a vivid, flushed red.

"I...I'm quite alright."

"No more sleep with one foot out of the blanket, okay? You probably caught a cold."

The lodge is warm and filled with the crackling sound of the fireplace and the mumbles of the nightkin. The two weave in a symphony as Doc Henry looks Rex over with careful eyes.

"I'm afraid his brain is deteriorated. Nothing to do but find him a new one."

"I see."

"You'd be best off finding a good hunting dog, something smart. I know Old Lady Gibson has a few. The Fiends are known for their hunting dogs, and the Legion, believe it or not, has some of the smartest around."

"Brains? What do we look like, fetcher zombies?"

Doc Henry shoots Veronica the look. She rolls her eyes and looks away. Something about the man didn't sit right with her, but she wasn't about to say it in front of RM. The way he knew so much about organic things just by looking at them reminded her of certain Brotherhood medics, or even Enclave –

"You, young lady, are quite the anomaly." The Doc's voice interrupts her thoughts. "It's been twelve years since I saw someone with ears like yours."

"Someone else with ears?" RM cocks her head to the side. The Doc nods.

"Young man brought in by his parents. Had the things removed. Nobody in the Mojave could've done a better job than me, if I may say so. Had the tail chopped, too, but that was a little harder. Nerve endings and such."

"That's...impossible. There's no record of anyone leaving the vault until I did."

"If you don't mind me saying, those vaults aren't exactly known for their honesty. There are a whole lotta lies in those places."

The Doc circles her, then stops.

"Your cycle just about coming up?"

RM nods. "Yes. How did you –"

"Wrote a paper on that boy back in the day. He talked a lot and told me things."

"Where is this boy now?"

"Couldn't tell ya." The Doc shakes his head. "Haven't seen him since. What I can tell ya, is where to go if you need to be restrained. I've got facilities here if you need 'em."

"Whoa whoa, _restrained_?" Veronica wrinkles her nose. The Doc sighs as if her question is excessively stupid.

"These spliced people-dogs get real violent during their mating periods. Violent, pushy, demanding. In the vault they were kept all paired off and peaceful, but out here there's nothing to pacify 'em. Your friend needs to be locked up in a coupla days."

"RM –"

"He's right, Veronica." RM nods, eyes wide and accepting. "I usually stayed in caves. This time...when we get back to the suite, I will consult Mr. House and ask for a secure room."

Veronica's disbelief bubbles up as a laugh. "You guys can't be serious. How much damage could she actually do?"

"It's not _damage_." The Doc glares coldly at nothing. "It's _propagation_. If you don't isolate the subject, there is a very high chance he or she will wander about in search of a mate. If one can't be found, they will settle for anyone. And everyone."

Veronica doesn't know what to think about that.

She only knows half the story. Only half the reason why RM looked sick to her stomach when Boone grabbed her. Only half the reason why she sent him away.

Lily doesn't know _any_ story.

She coos and reaches over with her thick fingers to stroke Veronica's hood as if trying to get to her hair.

"You're so pretty today, Daisy."

"I've told you before, blueberry-butt! My name is Veronica. Vero-nika."

"Hohoho, you're getting more spunky by the day." Lily chortles and adjusts her straw hat. "Dearie," She turns to RM. "Are we going somewhere else now? Leo is getting very restless."

"We're going to see many people who are like you." RM nods, packing a few heavy items into Lily's satchel slung around the nightkin's shoulders.

"Relatives! And it's not even summer yet. Should I make my potato salad to bring? Or do you think they'll like lemonade better?"

Veronica has to duck. She's never had to duck before, at least not on the front lines. She was the only one up front. Now she has what looks like a giant propeller tied to a stick to contend with and be aware of at all times, lest she get her head chopped off. Lily blissfully ignores everything around her in battle, but somehow manages to be the fastest, hardest, and most accurate-hitting thing for miles around. Even when her eyes are closed. Especially when her eyes are closed.

"How do you...do that thing you do?" The Brotherhood member asks the nightkin warily. RM is crouched over the body of a nightstalker, methodically opening the womb and retrieving the eggs inside.

"What thing, lovely Daisy?"

"That choppy-slashy-bang-bang thing? You always know exactly where to hit. It's a little creepy."

"Oh, that's just Leo, darling. He tells me where to chop. He's a very helpful sort."

"Riiiight. I guess I shouldn't be surprised we brought more crazy one board."

"You kids just say the darndest things." Lily crows in her gravelly voice and pinches (clumsily) Veronica's cheek. The bruise lasts for days. Lily puts a hand on RM's shoulder and squats by her side.

"When Leo comes for you, dearie, you mustn't be afraid."

"I won't be, grandma." RM smiles. "Not for long, anyway."

* * *

><p>Boone thinks the booze is horrible.<p>

No. Boone _knows_ the booze is horrible. It's horrible on purpose. He made sure to buy the shitiest looking bottle just to make sure it would taste as bad as it looked. Just so it would fuck him up as fast as possible in the most disgusting ways possible.

He's an NCR sniper.

Trained to kill. Trained to do what other people couldn't Trained to be in-control and clam and cool even in the face of certain death (even in the face of Bitter Springs, and he'd been calm, he was the only one who was calm, shooting down children calmly, while his teammates committed and sobbed beside him).

He'd once read his personnel file in the recruit office before he was shipped out to basic. 'Sociopathic tendencies'. That meant he didn't talk. Or react. Which was good. The military loved him for it.

The Mojave, not so much.

Vegas, not so much.

He downs the fourth shot of vodka and watches the room spin pleasantly. The Tops was where he kept coming back to, even when Benny wasn't here. Even when there was no reason to be here. He kept walking through the doors and hoping that his ghost would be around, or his laugh would be around, just so he could do something about it. Just so he could blame it. The stage peals with laughter as the ghoul comedian RM had rounded up for the Tops says something about nuclear fission. It's not as funny as they think it is. They're just drunk.

Boone's just drunk.

He sees the blonde woman across the room. The soldiers surrounding her mark her as NCR. Major, probably, by the number of stripes on her shoulder. Her eyes are large and green, and she looks as though she's enjoying the show as much as he is. Which is nto at all. Something about the way her mouth tilts flat at every joke has his interest peaked. She didn't get the humor. It's not that she was too dense to get it (he knew a girl who was too dense to get it) but it just wasn't in her taste.

He gets up and leaves before he says something stupid. Does something stupid. He gets out of the Tops and onto the neon streets of the Strip before he realizes he's being followed.

"Saw you staring."

He turns, and the blonde woman is there, arms crossed over her chest. She's drunk – tipsy, but not as shitfaced as he is.

"So what?"

"Major Elizabeth Kieran. You're the First Recon I saw with that strange wolf-girl. That day when you stopped the shootout between the Kings and us?"

"I remember. Funny seeing you in the Tops of all places."

"Why do you say that?" She walks a little closer, the smell of rum and nuka filling his nose.

"You didn't strike me as the type of soldier to gamble."

"I was there to show them I wasn't a stick-in-the-mud." Elizabeth huffs. "Eight months and they still give me crap for never going out to drink."

"So you got drunk."

"I did. I am."

"Don't follow me anymore."

"I won't."

He walks to the hotel shaped in a Vault. Vault...23? 22? He can't remember anymore, even when the sign is blaring down in his face. He's testing. Baiting. Trapping. Getting to see if she'll walk into his scope so he can fire. She does. He stands at the desk and waits for the girl to give him the hotel key and Elizabeth comes up behind him, behind his arm, and just stands there quietly as if _knowing_. _Wanting_.

And it's the end for him.

The halls of the Vault are dead. They echo eerily with their footsteps – ragged, choppy footsteps as she pushes him against the wall and he pushes back. Stairs, don't' fall down the stairs, take it easy here. Flat steps and her mouth is on his and her hair is short and jagged around her face as she pulls her flak jacket off. He fumbles at the door controls until they slide closed, the lights in their room staying off even as her shirt comes off, even as his buckle clinks to the ground. Boots and pants and moans, and the bed is too small, too big.

She's small, too small. Bony with years of military training. There's no fat anywhere, her breasts are perky and triangular, like little missiles, but he knows size is irrelevant at this point. Her stomach is perfectly smooth and hard, nothing unique about it. She is exactly what he need right now.

But not what he _wants_.

She moans under him because he knows. He knows that this does that, and touching here does this, and he does it to bring himself deeper into the fantasy he's creating; that the girl beneath him isn't really an NCR Major looking for a one-night stand, that she's softer and rounder, with the endearing, tiny patch of fat on her belly, with breasts so large he could lose his face in them, with a higher, fainter voice that stuttered when meeting new people, with liquid gold eyes and ears that would perk forward with his every thrust.

Elizabeth doesn't blush, or stutter. She twists and pants, but he doesn't think of her any less for it. He's making her into someone she's not and she might know, but probably not, and as long as she's the one getting it she doesn't seem to care about anything else, really. In the haze of the impending moment he has to turn her around, just because it's too hard to replace her face with what he wants. She grabs at the hard metal headboard and screams and he shudders, and he tries to savor the ringing in his ears and push out the lingering voices that try to tear him back to reality.

He leaves before she ever wakes, and walks the morning streets, and wonders when he stopped wanting to die alone.


	9. Chapter 9

RM read about Rome once in the vault holotapes – the decadent courts, the backstabbing politics, the sheer bloodthirst the Romans seemed to have for acquiring more land, riches, and slaves. Only when the Romans stopped waging war did the empire fall, fat on its laurels and past glories. The Legion – this new Rome – would fall as well.

RM can see, objectively, the crucial errors Caesar was making as a ruling body. He had established no conduct on the subject of inheritance of the title, nor did he specify which of his seventeen bastard children would be the one to take the throne. Caesar was manning a brutal, efficient machine of conquering and nothing more. The Romans, at least, cultivated art, poetry, culture, and those things served as the glue that held the empire together long after the fires of war had faded.

She points this out to Caesar himself, in the red velvet tent hung with cow skulls and special crucified prisoners in the corners. She says this all as Caesar himself, he of the bald head and power-hungry eyes, watches her. As every right hand man and left hand man eyes her up and down. Vulpes is among them, and stares at RM the longest, with the most intensity.

"Essentially, your empire is more akin to Sparta than to Rome." RM concludes. Veronica shifts her weight to her other foot nervously. Rex barks at a dying man on a cross in the corner.

Veronica thinks it's over right then. RM had waltzed into Cottonwood Cove, sailed on the boat without an inch of fear, and then, after seeing women of all ages horribly subjugated around camp, proceeded to tell Caesar exactly where his plans were flawed. They were going to die. Veronica says a half-second silent farewell to all the fuckers in her life. At her side, Lily hums a distorted lullaby.

Caesar must be drunk. Or happy. He doesn't look mad as he laces his fingers together.

"My empire is very much under construction. IN five years, my wolf friend, I will invite you again to this tent to take another look. Over dinner in that future, you will tell me your vastly changed opinions."

A commander behind himn sneers.

"But this is not what I brought you here to discuss." Caesar clears his throat. "I have a proposition for you."

Caesar wants then to open House's literal backdoor. Caesar thinks himself very smart. Caesar doesn't know that opening the bunker is exactly what House wants, too, and when House wants something done, it means it will only give House the upper hand. Veronica has learned by staying quiet and creeping through the halls of the Lucky 38 that Mr. House is the true power of the Mojave. His terminals are beyond uncrackable. His robots, with RM's help, are upgraded to indestructible.

The Brotherhood member almost feels sorry for Caesar. And then she remembers the women in chains all around her, and the pity is replaced by burning hate. No – she doesn't pity Caesar. She pities the hundreds of thousands of men he's throwing to their deaths in this war.

RM agrees to Caesar's 'deal'.

As they wander through camp preparing for the fight through the bunker, Veronica is glad RM agreed. They have full amnesty. Even if the soldiers eye her, they can't touch her under the threat of death. RM asks a legion dog breeder for the best brain he has, and he agrees as long as she can kill the aging dog in combat and give the animal a warrior's death.

Veronica had never seen RM fight in unarmed combat. There was always a stick of dynamite, a grenade, some kind of explosive between her and her attacker. As far as Veronica knew, RM couldn't fight a radroach without being armed. She'd been cornered on more than one occasion, and Veronica or Lily always had to save her.

But a dog fight is different to RM.

She strips of her armor, left only in her undergarments – dirty grey things. She pulls her dark ponytail tighter, ears perking forward as the shaggy legion dog pads from the other side of the arena. All RM has is a single combat knife, a knife Veronica wished she'd repaired better, now.

The legion dog growls, and lunges at the exposed girl-dog. Fur flies, the two entangled on the ground and Veronica is sure RM's head is being bitten off. Lily whoops and cheers, big blue hands pumping the air.

"That's my girl! Go get 'em, sweetie!"

Blood on the dirt, and a shriek from the dog. Silence. RM stands, cradling her armed lined with dog bites. Her mouth and teeth are stained with blood, and she spits a hairy piece of flesh on the ground.

The dog's throat is ripped open.

"Instincts." RM says cheerfully, now back in her armor and cradling the brain in the jar filled with preserving liquid. Rex flattens his ears against his head in a show of newfound submission, licking RM's hand gently.

The robots have gone insane in the bunker. They patrol with madly slurred mechanical words pouring from their mouths. Veronica hits the control panel and ducks just in time to avoid a spray of metal from a Securitron that met the full force of one of RM's grenades.

"That's it!" The Brotherhood member shouts over the battle cries of Lily and dying explosions of robots.

The radiation creeps into her bones like a sickly green cloud as she follows RM up the stairs. Mr. House stares down at them from the monitors.

"Very good. You must now leave the camp, preferably without drawing hostility. Return to the Strip. I will have news and our next step by then."

The screen goes black. Veronica's stomach twists as they ascend the stairs and hand their weapons over to the guards waiting at the door. Caesar is stupid enough to be delighted. He thinks they did what he asked. Veronica can't understand how the man has come this far with an intellect like that.

The cracking of whips resounds as they leave. With every cry of pain, Veronica flinches, and realizes that cruelty was greater than intellect in this place. Breathing is only possible when they're four miles from Cottonwood Cove, tent pitched in a fire ant cave. The oozing egg pits are preferable to the sneering rapists in red.

Lily fumbles with the mantis legs grilling on the fire, her thick fingers struggling with the tiny skewers. Rex is staring at his new brain floating in the jar on the ground. RM had gone outside to get some air. Veronica stands and decides to join her.

RM isn't alone.

Against the backdrop of the black Mojave night stands two figures at the mouth of the cave. The starlight isn't enough to light their faces, but Veronica knows the helmet of the second figure better than any other.

Vulpes.

She reaches to turn her Power Fist on, but then realizes RM is talking to him. Civilly.

"I don't think you understand. I am the one person who has prevented Caesar from invading your vault." Vulpes' voice is low, psychopathically cold.

"I understood. I do not, however, understand how that pertains to me. I have thanked you. That is enough."

Veronica knows the glint in those eyes. Vulpes is still a man, even if he is insane. The helmet he wears, the name, the way he's followed by a veritable pack of loyal dogs when traversing the Mojave. Veronica knows obsessions when she sees them – a perk of being raised among people willing to go axecrazy for any type of old technology. He's obsessed with hounds. And to him, RM is just another dog to add to his collection, his fetish. Veronica watches as he leans in to RM and murmurs into her ear. She watches his long tongue snake out and lick the shell of her ear, watches RM barely suppress the disgusted shudder in her shoulders.

Vulpes' voice is so quiet Veronica can barely hear it.

"When Caesar has conquered, you will be my trophy. We will return to your vault, and I will make your people my coven, and you will be my queen there in the eternal paradise of wolves. Remember that."

Veronica backs into the cave to get Lily. If the nightstalker gets the first hit, Vulpes would be dead meat. But in a blink, Vulpes is gone, retreating down the rocky slope. RM watches him go, arms wrapping around herself in a hug.

"RM?" Veronica tries. She sees ears perk up, and RM turns to her.

"Ah, you are not asleep? Getting rest is very important."

"RM, was that Vulpes? Why was he out here?"

"Delivering a message, it seems." RM sighs, breath frosted in the frigid temperature of the night.

"Sounded more like blackmail."

"A threat, really. I am not afraid, though. I am confident the NCR will win the next battle of the dam, regardless."

Veronica walks beside her, staring out at the stars. "What makes you think that? I mean, I've traveled with you, and all I've seen are triggerhappy nut heads with shoddy armor and third rate morale. What makes you think they'll win?"

RM's eyes soften. "The NCR I know never gives up. Never lets go. They fight until the end, and when the end comes, they stand tall and brave. No matter the hardships, or the sadness they have endured, they never let the people around them down. Loyal. Trustworthy. Bitter. A little secretive, but dedicated until the last man."

It takes Veronica a few moments to realize it. The look in her eyes, the way she hugs herself and rocks like there's an invisible person behind her. She's not talking about the NCR's army, but rather, a single sniper.

Veronica knows an oncoming train wreck when she sees one.

The Mojave does not allow peace. It does not allow love.

The Mojave tears tender affection apart and eats the organs whole.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Some chapters are serious, some are funny. Sorry. This story is so weird.

* * *

><p>Boone can't say no anymore.<p>

It's never been like this - a steady woman on a steady night. No sniping. No constant threats of death from Mojave creatures or local gangs. Just waiting. Waiting all day in a penthouse of a casino, waiting all night on streets so brightly lit it seems like day.

Just days of watching NCR troops come in to spend and drink and try to kill themselves in an emotional way before they're ordered to die beneath the hooves of the Legion. Greenhorns order a stripper and never come back, killed by nameless Fiends in a likewise nameless battle.

It's all cannon fodder before the real test - the dam is the only battle that will matter, that will get cadets' names in memorials and statues in honor of the fallen. Everything else dies in the shadows.

It's never been like this for Boone. Not since Carla. He'd tried peace once with her, and that had turned out great. Just great. So great, in fact, that she was now dead and he was now a million miles from where he began.

Major Elizabeth is a woman. A soldier. She's seen things and knows things, and when she walks into the Vault hotel room they usually rent, he can't say no.

Because he's a man. Because he's sick of being alone.

Because the person who made him sick of being alone is afraid of him.

Arcade shoots him looks when he comes home in the wee hours of the morning. Boone growls a 'fuck off, fruitcake', and the scientist turns back to his papers with a refined sniff. Cass spends more time in Freeside than Boone does in the Strip, organizing caravans with Mick and Ralph. ED-E is comfortable as it is - a robot, unfeeling. Sometimes Boone envies it.

Boone is the first one to see her come back.

Thunderous rain. A rain that wipes the streets of Vegas clean of strippers advertising and drunk NCRs staggering and gamblers bemoaning their losses. Gray sky, gray earth, and silver water in the air.

Boone smokes a cigarette under the awning of the Lucky 38. It's his seventh today. Doing nothing drove a soldier to one of two things - smoking, or going insane. Boone preferred the former. He smokes and spits and when that damned cowboy robot asks him if he's okay he draws a finger over his throat and the robot sighs and goes back to silent guard duty.

Rex tears up the wet steps, robot parts glistening. He barks and wags his tail at Boone, whose blood goes cold. If that dog was here, then -

"Hey NCR! You look as broody as ever." Veronica's cheery voice resounds. She shakes the water from her combat helmet and detaches it, hair mussed. "Damn, wish the storm season would of waited a little longer. Guess it didn't get the memo I don't appreciate lakes in my bra."

"Dearie, be sure to dry off when we get inside." Lily calls out, straw hat and everything below it thoroughly soaked.

"What about you, Lil?" Veronica looks to the nightkin.

"Oh, don't worry about me. Leo loves the water." Lily looks down at Boone. "Why hello there, Joshiekins. I hope you weren't waiting long for us."

"No." Boone deadpans.

"That's good! Let's go inside, dearie." Lily takes Veronica's arm (which is not unlike a mammoth grabbing a mouse with it's trunk) and leads her inside.

Rex sits at Boone's feet, head cocked as if waiting. He whines happily when the last figure walks up the steps. Her armor is different - black combat armor ripped in places, but sturdy. The combat helmet hadn't done anything to protect her face from the rain. Slick skin, a bruised cheekbone, and gold eyes with slit pupils.

He lets out the breath he'd been holding.

"Hey."

"Greetings." She murmurs. She takes the combat helmet off, hair damp. Her ears spring up. There's a quiet as he watches her and she looks anywhere but at him.

"Hello, Victor."

"Good afternoon, lil' lady!" The robot crows. "Mr. House is waitin' for ya upstairs!"

"Thank you." She smiles, turning to go inside. He's never been so glad to see those ears again, that tail. Even if she won't look at him, it's alright to just see her.

It's enough.

* * *

><p>Arcade fusses over her bruises. Cass sloppily tries to make something on the stove involving a radscorpion poison gland and whiskey.<p>

"Are you so jealous of my good looks you have to try to kill me?" Arcade grumbles, spitting the food - Brahmin shit, really - back onto his plate.

"Shut up, Pocket Protector, and be grateful." Cass sneers.

"Oh yes. So grateful to lose a kidney."

RM giggles. Boone picks the edible parts out of the disturbing parts. Lily sneaks her food to the floor for Rex to eat. "It's such a lovely meal, dearie."

Veronica holds her empty plate out, cheeks stuffed. "Mo' pshease."

The table goes quiet as they stare at her incredulously. The Brotherhood member's eyes go wide.

"'Wut?"

Arcade holds up his mug of wine. "To the grossest taste buds in the world."

Glasses raise. "…grossest taste buds in the world."

* * *

><p>"I'll be gone for a few days. Just me." RM says to Arcade. The older man raises a fine gold eyebrow.<p>

"Really? And where would you be going all by yourself?"

She smiles. "That is a secret."

"You'll be alright? You have enough stimpacks?"

"I won't be fighting."

And then she's gone for a week. No clue as to where she's headed, or what she planned to do once there.

Arcade is a light sleeper. During the nights he hears faint ringing coming from the vents, like the vibrations of some high-pitched noise. The noise gets louder as the days wear on, and he can faintly make out words, 'please' being the most prominent.

With a little math, he figures the noise has to be coming from the basement of the Lucky 38. He knows the basement - a door at the bottom of the stairs in the lobby, guarded by two unsleeping Securitrons. There are two things Arcade won't stand for - torture, and extended torture. He throws the covers off and sifts around in the equipment lockers - finding a decent set of armor and a laser rifle. He wouldn't need either if all went well.

He gets down to the casino level and rolls the pulse grenade down the stairs. It gives him thirty seconds of stunned Securitron silence in which he can open their faceplates and hack their motherboards. It wouldn't last long, maybe four or five minutes, because the robots were immensely sophisticated and refreshed their connections to House's databases often, which overrode any hacks. House would know someone had tampered with this robots, but by then Arcade would be in and out of the basement.

Past the door, the single hall is empty and twists. The cries become louder, the voice familiar.

The room opens, empty and small and so dim he can barely see. A plexiglass cell holds back a single person.

"Hello?" Arcade tries. This isn't torture - calming music of some kind wafts from unseen speakers, and the smell of lavender hangs in the air. The dimness is calming, too. He stops walking forward as two huge yellow eyes loom from the darkness behind the glass. He can't see the face, or the body, but those slit eyes belong to one person.

"RM…is that you?" Arcade gulps.

No words. The yellow eyes simply grow closer, glowing with an unholy light.

"Arcade." Her voice croaks. "Good, sweet Arcade. Won't you get me out of here?"

"Why the hell are you in there in the first place? Did House do this to you?"

"Oh, Arcade. Always so concerned about me. You really care, don't you."

"Is there a terminal I can use?" He looks around, but the darkness swallows everything. Everything except those eyes.

"It hurts, Arcade."

"What hurts? Did he torture you or something? I'll get you out, don't -"

Panting. She starts panting. It's loud and hot and leaves clouds on the plexiglass.

"Arcade….it hurts so much. It's so empty. I'm so empty - you'll help me, right?"

White teeth flash in a smile - the incisors sharp. Her tongue lolls out, and he briefly sees white skin of fingers that dip low, lower, into the hem of her pants.

"Arcade….please."

Her pleading is pitiful, dark, needy.

"RM, w-why are you -"

A hand claps over his mouth from behind. He starts, nearly drawing his laser rifle, but the intruder's other hand is on that, too. Arcade recognizes the calloused fingers and smell of gun grease.

"Don't talk." Boone murmurs. "It eggs her on."

"Boone!" RM's voice pitches up in surprise. "You've come back. I knew you could not stay away. I missed you. Ooh, I missed you very, very much. I kept thinking about you."

Boone lets Arcade's mouth go. Beneath the classical music, Arcade can hear a slick, rhythmic sound. The breath on the glass clouds larger, the pants ragged. The yellow eyes grow hooded. If Arcade had any inclination for women, the sounds alone would get to him.

"A-Ah…Boone…please, please, please -"

Boone grabs Arcade's arm and leads him through the hall, RM's voice trailing after them.

"Come back, Boone! Please! I -"

It devolves to a long, shuddering moan. Arcade feels Boone's hand tighten on his arm, like he wants to snap something in two.

He slams the door open and throws Arcade into the casino. The Securitrons are back online, and one of them has House's face on it.

"Arcade Gannon. I would appreciate it if you would not pry into such affairs again. RM has requested this incarceration, and I have given her my word she would remain alone."

"What the hell is going on here?" Arcade starts, rubbing his sore arm. "What was wrong with her?"

"I believe Boone knows. He tried a…much less elegant method to get in a few days ago. Goodnight, gentlemen. Leave RM alone, and refrain from breaking my robots, if you please. It will only make me angry."

The glowering cartoon face replaces House's.

"Violent mating season." Boone grunts. "Veronica told me. I heard something in the vents, went to see what it was. Saw that…thing…in the basement."

"She's….in heat?"

"Needs to ride it out. Lasts a week. Don't bug her again."

Arcade watches him go, gait stiff.

When Arcade gets back to the suite, he reaches for the nearest bottle of wine and cranks the radio to drown out the pleading coming from the vents.

* * *

><p>RM comes out a week later, her usual bright, cheery self. Arcade can't shake the image of her pressed against the glass. Boone doesn't look at her. She doesn't look at him, or when she does, her face reddens with an emotion Arcade knows all too well - shame. Her calm, collected voice now is nothing like the vicious, dark cries of the wolf in heat.<p>

He had been afraid.

He is still afraid.

He tries not to show it.

* * *

><p>Arcade isn't sure how RM's managed to convince them to come to this place. He's fairly certain it involved witchcraft, copious amounts of bribing, and promises of never being forced to eat Cass' food again. No one would come to this zombie-infested place otherwise. Well, Lily would, but she was psychotic. Boone would too, but he was also a serial killer.<p>

So, besides serial killers and psychotic nightkin, no one in their right mind would come here. And Arcade prided himself on very much being in his right mind.

REPCONN's facility has long been abandoned - a derelict station centering on all things space. Arcade never had much interest in space. The Enclave had, of course, and he'd grown up hearing about 'acquiring alien technology' and 'contacting other species'. Nothing they did amounted to anything more than locating maybe one or two crashed UFOs in the Capital Wasteland, and those had been picked clean by someone they called the 'Lone Wanderer'.

Nevertheless, the equipment inside the facility is interesting to Arcade - hundreds of machines he never knew about, all in one place. The ghouls squat in piles of rotting skin and old books. They split up at the door and clear the building out like pros - it wasn't hard with the quality weapons RM stocked in the suite. The voice on the intercom demands they stop, and they do, and they meet the strangest ghoul group in the world - all bent on getting into space. RM agrees to help the leader, a glowing ghoul with a name that made Arcade laugh for a full minute. Jason Bright. It was the little things that tickled Arcade's fancy.

Without him they'd be lost, he decides.

He sighs and pushes them aside and works with Chris on fine-tuning the rockets for launch while RM, Lily, and Boone head down to the basement to clear out a particularly troublesome nightkin infestation. For reasons unbeknownst to Arcade, RM had Lily carry around nearly fifty REPCONN collectable rockets at all times. He wondered if she had some strange ESP regarding where and when she would require certain children's toys.

They squeeze into the viewing platform. Lily has to duck, Boone has to lean on the window. The dome opens and Arcade watches his handiwork as the rockets flare to life in a blossom of neon fire and take off into the night. RM's eyes light up in wonder.

"Oh look, dearies - that's such a large shooting star!" Lily crows.

Arcade chuckles. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees RM shift, body bumping into Boone's briefly. Her face lights up like a bonfire - Boone sets his jaw.

"Should bring Major Elizabeth here sometime, Boone. Women love romantic star-gazing crap like this." Arcade clears his throat. The words seem to douse RM's blush with ice water. Boone says nothing, staring out at the fading nuclear trail of plasma in the sky.

RM is quiet on the trek back home. She walks with Arcade, Lily taking point and Boone taking rear.

"Does he….does he like her?" Her voice is timid. Arcade knows instantly who she's talking about - Boone and the Major.

"Sure. Went out to see her pretty much every night when you were gone."

"Is she nice?"

"Yeah. Real composed and knows a lot."

"That's good. Knowing a lot is good." RM nods, smile small. Arcade swallows hard, staring at her incisors. She's wrong.

Knowing a lot is horrible.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author Note May 11th: **

Hey guys. After three years of hardass work and six failed books, I finally got an offer of rep from a literary agency, and legally can't post here anymore. If you want to talk or whatevs, PM me. I'll put my twitter in my profile if you wanna hit me up there. I'm sorry I can't finish this. Writing these fanfics was always a nice break. Fanfiction is always in my heart.

I started writing fanfiction when I was twelve, got agent rep at 21. You never know where life's gonna take you.

There's something comforting about never knowing.

Stay sexy.


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